NB: as of 23 September 2008, all new artSMart articles are being published on the site news.artsmart.co.za.

THE CRUCIBLE
(article first published : 2006-09-3)

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible will have a limited run at the Square Space Theatre at the Howard College Campus, UKZN.

Performed by Honours Acting students of the Drama and Performance programme, under the expert direction of Tamar Meskin, The Crucible promises to be a provocative, not to be missed, piece of theatre.

Miller’s play is one of the key texts of 20th century drama and theatre goers should take advantage of the rare opportunity to see this extraordinary work of mass hysteria, despair and redemption performed live. The Crucible, although set in the 1600s, is still – and frighteningly - particularly accessible and relevant to our current context, reminding us of the dangers of fearing that which we don’t understand.

In the introduction of his Collected Plays, Arthur Miller says: “By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up a new relationship between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other invention of man in that it ought to help us know more, and not merely to spend our feelings,”